Gregory Kane
Gregory Kane: Memo to the whining Left
By: Gregory Kane
August 10, 2009
Memo to the whining Left
By Gregory Kane
How do we deal with people like those of the Whining Left who, even after Sonia Sotomayor has been confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, are still complaining?
So there they were, as late as Wednesday of last week, grousing that their woman was abused during the confirmation hearings, and that “right-wing” radio talk-show hosts were saying horrible things about her.
I was a guest on a local radio show in Baltimore – the station is located on a college campus, so that means the viewpoint is left-wing, not right-wing – and apparently one of the complaints is that one of the senators said to Sotomayor that “you have some ‘splaining to do.”
Well, my stars! This didn’t strike me as exactly a Joseph Conrad “Oh, the horror! The horror!” moment. Truth is, I’ve used the phrase myself, in a column about one Andres Alonso, the superintendent and chief executive officer of Baltimore’s public schools. Alonso is a Cuban-American, and no sooner had the column appeared than I got the e-mail, from one of the testier members of the Whining Left.
By now, most conservatives are aware that it’s a doctrine of these folks that all conservatives are, by definition, racist. This is the flip side of their rule that blacks and other “people of color” can’t be racist because they have no power.
So the e-mailer, a woman, accused me of having anti-Latino bias because I said that Alonso “had some ‘splaining to do.” I reminded her of where the phrase came from: Cuban-American actor Desi Arnaz, playing the Cuban-American character Ricky Ricardo, on the classic 1950s television show “I Love Lucy.”
There was nothing “anti-Latino” about the saying; in fact, it has now become part of standard American lingo like “Where’s the beef?” or “Hold the phone, Andy” or “What ‘choo talkin’ bout, Willis?”
And I did some checking: I’d used the exact phrase a few years earlier, before Alonso became CEO of Baltimore’s schools, about all the non-Latino folks who run Baltimore’s school system. When it comes to public education, the people in charge of Baltimore schools do, indeed, have much “splaining to do.”
So the charge of anti-Latino bigotry against the senator who said Sotomayor had “some ‘splaining to do” simply won’t wash. Because the truth is she still does. Let’s review who’s just been confirmed to a lifetime appointment as a justice to the highest court in the land: A woman who has indicated that she has a problem with white males, who ruled in one case that discriminating against them is the law of the land.
And she is on record as saying, before one of those left-wing audiences on a college campus where she thought no moderate or conservative ears were listening, that policy is made from the judicial bench, not in state legislatures or the Congress or the executive branch of government.
Whatever else happened to Sotomayor during her confirmation hearing, she at least came through the process with her reputation intact. I’m not sure the same can be said about Robert Bork, and I know it can’t be said about Justice Clarence Thomas.
Bork didn’t even get confirmed; in fact, senators raked him over the coals in his confirmation hearings. The reason? In Bork’s judicial philosophy, justices and judges do not make policy; their powers are constitutionally limited and they should show what’s been called “judicial restraint.”
Of course, that meant Bork believed that the Roe v. Wade decision, where seven justices overturned laws in those states that outlawed abortion, was wrong. Equally wrong were the decisions that set the precedent for Roe: Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Bairdt.
We all know what happened to Thomas: Lawyer Anita Hill, who used to work with him, emerging from the woodwork at the 11th hour with charges of sexual harassment against Thomas. With absolutely no one to confirm her allegations against Thomas, Hill was allowed to go before the nation and accuse the man of vile and despicable conduct. The reputation of being a sexual harasser taints Thomas to this day.
Compared to what happened to Bork and Thomas – the term “to be borked,” like “you have some ‘splaining to do” is also now part of the American lexicon – Sotomayor got off easy. Someone needs to send that memo to members of the Whining Left.
Examiner columnist Gregory Kane is an award-winning journalist who lives in Baltimore.
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